Frittyblack

Thank you Rattledagger it worked ! :smile: So to sum it up: To make a backup, you need: 1) backup of downloads + unpacked folder 2) backupt of appdata/roaming/vortex 3) backup of documents/mygames/skyrim 4) backup of clean skyrim installation, at best with all manual files already added, like skse (or install again/verify cache). To restore a backup you should NOT only restore one of those at a time, because vortex can't handle this. You have to restore everything at once before starting vortex again. @Vortex developers: please add a "make backup" mechanism to vortex, this would make things much easier for everyone. And of course the holy grail would be, if you could save all installation/rules settings from vortex and give them to somoeone else -> new user can download mods at nexus and use all the settings from the other person, so in the end he will have the same configuration easily. This would elimate the need of all the "how to install mods" tutorials and no beginner has to spend days just to install some mods. And of course this would also be another way to do backups.

thank you very much. Where do I assign an ID for a mod? Or are these just thoughts from you and you already dismissed them? (sry english is not my native language and I have trouble to understand if I should try this or not) Okay, then I will try to delete everything and use the backup (in fact I'm already using backups, but I did not cleaned the installatios folder of skyrim, mainly because I can't remember what files I put manually there (eg SKSE and maybe more, I don't know..) @fore: feel free to contribute helpful information how to do it right next time (and no I'm no skyrim modder, I'm a user who has that many mods enabled, that I don't want to do the process of installing again and therefore made a backup of every file. And now I'm unable to restore it, because of Vortex limitations. I think this is a very good reason to be upset. Rattledagger is the first one who writes me how to possible restore my backup, but we will see if this works, I don't have a good feeling. Anyway, thank you very much for your mods.)

@Rattledagger: Thank you. 1) I don't see any place where I have 0KB files (before installing+deploying Fnis), but I may test more to see if I find out the reason for this and will also try to choose option A. 2) I have a backup from 1 month ago from the appdata/roaming/vortex folder and also a backup of the downlaods and unpacked folder from the same date. I think the rules are also still there, the reason why I see conflicts is: will it help to: - empty the downlodas and unpacked folder. zip all my unpacked backup mods (so I don't have to do fomod again), put tehm into the downloads folder, start vortex and vortex will use the conflict rules on them? Or will vortex simply see "new mods" without conflict rules set up? How exactly does vortex links the conflict rules? With help of a checksum of the files? In case there is really no way to make vortex think the enabled mods are the correct ones, is there instead a way to copy conflict rules to new mods (with same files)? Or at least have an overview about all my rules, so I at least know how to set (the same) new rules for "new" mods manually? But seriously, modders and also mod users always need a way to restore a backup. And from what we see here currently is, that vortex is unable to restore a backup? Vortex developers can't be serious with this...

Yes, I know all of this. But because of this mess I now HAVE to find a way how to: Not install everything from the zip files again (because this also means I have to go through the fomod installation of every mod, have to set all the rules again and all this stuff that will take days fro that many mods). So I'm hoping for a developer/support agent to tell me a way to trick Vortex into "thinking" everything is alright, eg by directly changing some vortex profile files. This is the only way to go. And as I said previously, the 0KB thing also happens when installing FNIS new from the zip file. But your hint to just zip the loose files to install them again at least circumvents the need to go through the fomod installation again... But still everything else would be lost, so I fear this is no option. I think Vortex could be a brilliant tool, but currently you see, that a backup of mods is worthless. With this normal behaviour of vortex you can not restore a backup (with everything set up) and that is really really bad. So tell me the trick how this is still possible. edit: you wrote: "The Mods staging directory is managed by Vortex, and consists of the unpacked mods plus changes Vortex makes. Discovered disk changes are merged back to this directory." What exactly does this mean? Are changes from instalaltion folder merged to the unpacked folder, or the other way round? Or does it depend on what I choose, when vortex tells me that there was a change? I always choose "newest file" , while I never change anything within the installation folder, so I see no reason why Vortex should change/destroy the files in the unpacked folder...

@loyboy86: I'm at version 0.17.11, so not the newest (because I know that new updates often mess everything up.. but this time I messed it up myself) I did what I wrote above (put the backup unpacked mods to the unpacked-folder), and right after starting vortex it noticed the changes and I confirmed, but now: 1) Vortex lists every mod twice, once as uninstalled zip and once as installed... (I just ignored the uninstalled once for now) 2) For whatever reason, all my conflict rules I did set up days ago, are not valid anymore, it shows a lot of conflicts (I ignored them for now) 3) Then I hit deploy and this time it was not stuck at "sorting", BUT again it destroyed (0KB) at least the FNIS exe (for sure even more) So WHY the hell is Vortex changing (destryoing) the unpacked mod files?!?! Isn't it supposed to ONLY change the mods in the installatino folder and leaving the other untouched?! Where does Vortex store the conflict rules I set up (and which mod is enabled/disabled)? In Appdata/Roaming/Vortex I only see the loadorder (of esp`s) and the plugins, but no load order of other files of mods. When I copy one profile content to another, they do not look the same within vortex. edit: Regarding 2): I guess this is linked to 1), the rules I set up are only valid for the now "uninstalled" mods. So I need a way Vortex recognizes these unpacked mods as the same and as installed...

Okay.. WinMerge tells me that still thousand of files are affected by the 0KB thing, this is only ~3% of all files, but still too much to fix them by hand. Luckily my last backup to another drive was only 1 month ago and since then only few mods were added. So my plan is now to use this backup and add the few new mods. Can anyone tell me now, how to go on? I will copy the backup to the vortex unpacked folder. Vortex should again tell me that everything changed. What to do now and how to prevent the same problem from happening again? Wait more than 20 minutes?

thank you for the response. The error messages were messages like "failed to start FNIS", "error with mod", "xy is not a valid plugin", "LOOT failed" and stuff like this. These error messages are caused by the 0KB problem. The Fnis[..].exe is only 0KB and also various other files. Luckily it are not as many files affected by this 0KB thing than I thought first. But as described above, I "uninstalled" every mod by deleting/moving the folder and installed it (from the zip files) again (only FNIS to see if it works) and again the Fnis exe and other files from it are 0KB. So there might be something damaged that even a new installation from the archive is not working =/ (while unzipping the archive with 7 zip has no problem exe works fine then) currently I'm making backups from everything related to skyrim/vortex I can find... and also to get an overview how many mods are affected by this 0KB thing...

editfinally: Solution how to restore a backup can be found here: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/7688828-vortex-corrupted-how-to-save-what-is-possible/?p=70532368 ------------------------------------------ Vortex broke my game/mods too... I had a whole copy (backup) of my skyrim installation with several mods deployed. Then I did some changes to the original which did not work well (no big problems, just not what I wanted to achieve). Therefore I deleted the whole original installation and renamed the backup folder to "Skyrim Special Edition". Started Vortex again, but it claims that everything was changed (are the same files as previously, but not exactly the same, since its a backup). I told him to save changes and always use the newest file and it started deploying. 20 minutes later, nothing changed, it was still at the "sorting mods" stage, so I quit Vortex. Started again and tried to deploy again, but now I get hundreds of error messages. Looking at the installatin folder and also in my skyrimse folder (where the unpacked mods are stored from nexus) showed that nearly every file there has now a size of 0 KB and therefore not working anymore! So Vortex did not only destroyed my installatino, but also the unpacked mods itself ?!?!?! Now you could say "do not close Vortex while deploying", but 1) over 20! minutes nothing happend! 2) There has to be a mechnism to prevent things like this, even if I close it! 3) Why is Vortex too stupid to simply see that it is a backup folder and everything is fine?! 4) why does it also compromise the unpacked mods folder, there is no reason to change these at all !??! Now I have neither my orignal nor my backup folder anymore and have to install everything from scratch... edit: currently trying to solve the problem without complete new install. I deleted the folder of unpacked mods, so Vortex will show everything as "uninstalled". Then I installed "FNIS" again and deployed. But it still says FNIS would be missing, so I looked at the newly unpacked FNIS and again, everything is 0KB ?!?! unpacking the zip with 7zip shows no problem, so Vortex is currently totally messed up! Can anyone advise what I should do now to save as many settings/mods as possible? I don't want to start everything from scratch, it took me days to install/set up all those mods =/ Is is somehow possible to undo all the changes done from vortex (the 0KB thing) so I at least hjave again a fully working installation+mods from skyrim?! additional information: Vortex version: 0.17.11 (not the newest, because vortex is dangerous and I dont wanted to change a running system) Windows 10 pro Skyrim Special edition.

edit: made own thread asking for help: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/7688828-vortex-corrupted-how-to-save-what-is-possible/

Skyrim SE, newest Vortex version, windows 10. I have several different profiles, all have the setting to have seperate save games and game settings. In the MyGames/SkyrimSE folder I can see in the savegame folder one folder for each profile with the corresponding Profile ID. Yesterday I played with profile A. Today I switched to profile B and started the game, but all savegames shown were from profile A. I just moved all savegame folders that do not belong to profile B out of Savegame folder and now I can not load anything AND a new folder with name "A" was generated in the savegames folder, prooving that the game is indeed still working with profile A savegames, although profile B is enabled. So long story short: While profile B is active, it still accesses savegame folder A, instead of B. I guess this might be related to this bugreport: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/7490446-vortex-profile-switching-copies-wrong-inis/ edit: if I go the the "savegames" section within vortex, it will show me the correct savegames of the profile.

okay, thank you for the hint with notes. Is it somehow possible to backup vortex, or at least the profiles with all dependency/conflict rules? google-searched for this, but all I found was "backup mods with vortex" which is not what I'm looking for, and this github posts telling me that a backup button does not exist yet https://github.com/Nexus-Mods/Vortex/issues/2584 . Do I read it right, that I could "repair"==start the uninstall and that way backup vortex? I don't want to risk loosing my vortex profiles, so I won't try this for now. The easiest thing would be of course if someone knows a folder where those profiles are saved, so I can just copy them. btw should I start a new thread for each of my questions, or is it okay to use this one?

aaand why?! As far as I got from tutorial videos this has no automatic effect, it only raises a message if I forgot an required mod or enabled two mods that do not work together. No one can remember all those requirements/incompatibility, at least not for months/years. So of course it is a very good idea to add those rules!?

IF you're trying to do this with MODS, then just use the MANAGE RULES window If you're tying to do this with Plugins, DON"T, you really shouldn't be fiddling with your Plugin Load Order, if you REALLY need to have a PLUGIN show up after another, then add it to a group I appreciate that you take time to answer my beginner questions. But I already wrote in my post, that in "manage rules" there is no way to create a new rule, only existing rules are listed. Or do you see a way? (maybe I have to enable specific settings or sth like this) I mainly would like to add rules like "requires" or "do not load with" so I do not forget this when trying around with mods. I found a small "workaround": there is one little very tiny point where you can go with the cursor while dragging that allows to scroll up/down (hard to find this spot, it is on the right top/down near the scrolling bar). so this way drag and drop works, so I consider this a bug (that scrolling with mouse wheel or arrow keys is not possible)

would it hurt to write down the answer? In the video is only the drag and drop method mentioned and searching for dependencies on the wiki does not help. And also the "manage rules" button in vortex only shows existing rules and there is no button to create a new one... And of course my post this is also a quite good suggestion, doesnt make sense to not allow scrolling while dragging, so this should be implemented. (I now added this to my bugreport thread, since I'm sure it is a bug that we can not scroll while dragging)

Can someone tell me how to add depencies for mods? I enabled the depencies row and in the tutorial videos I saw I can simply drag and drop to add depencies. But while holding the left mouse button to drag it, I can not scroll, neither via mouse nor via up/down key arrows, so I see no way to drop it in the correct mod ?!